Friends and relatives of Viktor Orbán still have the Midas touch when it comes to EU funds!

A two-party consortium involving companies owned by rags-to-riches gaspipe fitter Lőrinc Mészáros and a business associate of István Tiborcz, the prime minister’s son-in-law, has won a HUF 1.67 billion (USD 7 million) public tender to improve cycling and parking infrastructure in the western city of Győr. The results of the public tender were announced today after bids submitted by Struktúra Kft., Épkar Zrt., and PBE Építő Kft. (a subsidiary 0f West Hungária Bau Kft.) were disqualified, reports online investigative website Átlátszó.

The winning bid submitted by the W-E 2017 consortium was some HUF 10 million (USD 3,800) less than the HUF 1.78 billion estimated by Győr-Szol Győri Közszolgáltató és Vagyongazdálkodó Zrt., the city-owned company that issued the call for proposals in July 2017. The construction of 205 parking spaces and a 223-square-meter ballet studio is to be financed in large part using EU development funds.

W-E 2017 consortium consists of West Hungária Bau Kft., the company which acquired Tiborcz’s company Elios Innovatív Zrt., in April 2015 after the latter won a series of EU-funded municipal tenders to upgrade public lighting, and Euro Generál Zrt., a construction company acquired earlier this year by Mészáros’s Opimus Group Nyrt. (renamed Opus Global Nyrt. in August this year).